第95章

--Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentleman.Although, as Ihave said, he left the bulk of his property, by will, to a public institution, he added a codicil, by which he disposed of various pieces of property as tokens of kind remembrance.It was in this way I became the possessor of the wonderful instrument I have spoken of, which had been purchased for him out of an Italian convent.The landlady was comforted with a small legacy.The following extract relates to Iris : "in consideration of her manifold acts of kindness, but only in token of grateful remembrance, and by no means as a reward for services which cannot be compensated, a certain messuage, with all the land thereto appertaining, situated in ______Street, at the North End, so called, of Boston, aforesaid, the same being the house in which I was born, but now inhabited by several families, and known as 'The Rookery.'" Iris had also the crucifix, the portrait, and the red-jewelled ring.The funeral or death's-head ring was buried with him.

It was a good while, after the Little Gentleman was gone, before our boarding-house recovered its wonted cheerfulness.There was a flavor in his whims and local prejudices that we liked, even while we smiled at them.It was hard to see the tall chair thrust away among useless lumber, to dismantle his room, to take down the picture of Leah, the handsome Witch of Essex, to move away the massive shelves that held the books he loved, to pack up the tube through which he used to study the silent stars, looking down at him like the eyes of dumb creatures, with a kind of stupid half-consciousness that did not worry him as did the eyes of men and women,--and hardest of all to displace that sacred figure to which his heart had always turned and found refuge, in the feelings it inspired, from all the perplexities of his busy brain.It was hard, but it had to be done.

And by-and-by we grew cheerful again, and the breakfast-table wore something of its old look.The Koh-i-noor, as we named the gentleman with the diamond, left us, however, soon after that "little mill," as the young fellow John called it, where he came off second best.His departure was no doubt hastened by a note from the landlady's daughter, inclosing a lock of purple hair which she "had valued as a pledge of affection, ere she knew the hollowness of the vows he had breathed," speedily followed by another, inclosing the landlady's bill.The next morning he was missing, as were his limited wardrobe and the trunk that held it.Three empty bottles of Mrs.Allen's celebrated preparation, each of them asserting, on its word of honor as a bottle, that its former contents were "not a dye," were all that was left to us of the Koh-i-noor.

>From this time forward, the landlady's daughter manifested a decided improvement in her style of carrying herself before the boarders.

She abolished the odious little flat, gummy side-curl.She left off various articles of "jewelry." She began to help her mother in some of her household duties.She became a regular attendant on the ministrations of a very worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meetin' by witnessing a marriage ceremony in which he called a man and a woman a "gentleman" and a "lady,"--a stroke of gentility which quite overcame her.She even took a part in what she called a Sabbath school, though it was held on Sunday, and by no means on Saturday, as the name she intended to utter implied.All this, which was very sincere, as I believe, on her part, and attended with a great improvement in her character, ended in her bringing home a young man, with straight, sandy hair, brushed so as to stand up steeply above his forehead, wearing a pair of green spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth.His personal aspect, and a certain solemnity of countenance, led me to think he must be a clergyman;and as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out before several of us boarders, one day, that "Sis had got a beau," I was pleased at the prospect of her becoming a minister's wife.On inquiry, however, Ifound that the somewhat solemn look which I had noticed was indeed a professional one, but not clerical.He was a young undertaker, who had just succeeded to a thriving business.Things, I believe, are going on well at this time of writing, and I am glad for the landlady's daughter and her mother.Sextons and undertakers are the cheerfullest people in the world at home, as comedians and circus-clowns are the most melancholy in their domestic circle.

As our old boarding-house is still in existence, I do not feel at liberty to give too minute a statement of the present condition of each and all of its inmates.I am happy to say, however, that they are all alive and well, up to this time.That amiable old gentleman who sat opposite to me is growing older, as old men will, but still smiles benignantly on all the boarders, and has come to be a kind of father to all of them,--so that on his birthday there is always something like a family festival.The Poor Relation, even, has warmed into a filial feeling towards him, and on his last birthday made him a beautiful present, namely, a very handsomely bound copy of Blair's celebrated poem, "The Grave."The young man John is still, as he says, "in fustrate fettle." Isaw him spar, not long since, at a private exhibition, and do himself great credit in a set-to with Henry Finnegass, Esq., a professional gentleman of celebrity.I am pleased to say that he has been promoted to an upper clerkship, and, in consequence of his rise in office, has taken an apartment somewhat lower down than number "forty-'leven," as he facetiously called his attic.Whether there is any truth, or not, in the story of his attachment to, and favorable reception by, the daughter of the head of an extensive wholesale grocer's establishment, I will not venture an opinion; Imay say, however, that I have met him repeatedly in company with a very well-nourished and high-colored young lady, who, I understand, is the daughter of the house in question.